External FW HD - Error code -50

Hi, my boss has been having a heck of a time with her new 110GB external FW drive. Every time she tries to copy large files to it (and even some small files on occasion), it gives her Error Code -50 and quits. The Apple website gives a Terminal command as a workaround, but that's not acceptable for her. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, is there a good solution? Thanks much.

Hi there...yeah we seemed to have found what was wrong - invalid characters in filenames. Specifically, we were having trouble when copying files with "?" and "!". Ff course, the error message doesn't let you know this (just like every other Mac error message). But anyway we just reformatted the drive to "Mac OS Extended" and the problem went away. Hope this helps...please post if this doesn't fix the problem.

Originally posted by thesloth420 Hi, my boss has been having a heck of a time with her new 110GB external FW drive. Every time she tries to copy large files to it (and even some small files on occasion), it gives her Error Code -50 and quits. The Apple website gives a Terminal command as a workaround, but that's not acceptable for her. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, is there a good solution? Thanks much.

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I had this problem, but with a LaCie 120gb USB 2.0 drive. I suspect it was because the drive is Windows formatted and I was trying to copy a ton of Mac stuff to it.

Well that's great...kind of weird when a very reputable company says that their product won't work on a very popular operating system...I don't really believe them. I think they may have just brushed off your question. Please post your results here. I'm curious about 10.3 myself but don't really want to shell out the money for an upgrade unless it's worth it.

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